


Rhabdoviridae

by R_Knight



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 18:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Knight/pseuds/R_Knight
Summary: Lovett jokes about him being twitchy during their Monday pod, asking if he’s had too much coffee. Half the comments on their most recent live stream are about how oddly he’s been acting, how flustered he looks. He starts bringing spare shirts with him to change into half way through the day.(Jon Favreau is a werewolf. He just doesn't know it.)





	Rhabdoviridae

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [psa_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/psa_2018) collection. 



> **Prompt: Jon Favreau is a werewolf. That's it, that's the prompt.**
> 
> I wasn’t sure if your lack of relationship tags meant you didn’t want any or you didn’t care, anon, so this can sort of be read as what you want – real life partners are mentioned, but this can also be read as poly commune or whatever. Hope this is something along the lines of what you were looking for!

**Jon**

Jon feels weird. _Has_ felt weird, for a little while now. But the third time he goes to his doctor only to be told that there is medically nothing wrong with him, _and also these pamphlets on anxiety and hypochondria might be helpful to look at_ , Jon makes the executive decision to just ignore it. They're all so busy – in a good way, of course, it still shocks him how Crooked has taken off – but it feels like there is never a good time to sit down and talk. Never a good time to tell anyone that he has felt perpetually flushed for weeks; that he has a crackling knot sitting in his chest that is always seconds from becoming an auditory rumble; that for every healthy wrap or salad they see him eat for lunch, there are two, five, a dozen instances where he guiltily gorges himself on whatever meat he can get his hands on.

That’s not the least of it, though. He’ll feel weak and spacey one moment, then shaky with unspent energy the next, barely able to focus on anything – and as time passes, it only seems to get worse. He’s nearing on a month since this had all started, and he’s not sure he’s successfully hiding it any more. Lovett jokes about him being twitchy during their Monday pod, asking if he’s had too much coffee. Half the comments on their most recent live stream are about how oddly he’s been acting, how flustered he looks. He starts bringing spare shirts with him to change into half way through the day.

It’s the fourth day in a row he’s barely slept, kept up with strange, hazy nightmares that are more shapes and smells than anything, flashes of _want_ and _need_ and flesh between his teeth. They last for what feels like days, but every time, when he wakes up with sheets wet with sweat and inexplicable rips in his pillow case, barely an hour will have past. He’s going through the motions on autopilot, smiling where he’s supposed to – showing his teeth in a way that feels strangely aggressive – and making jokes and doing his job, and sort of, maybe, losing his mind a little.

“Jon,” he hears someone saying. “ _Jon!_ ”

Oh. It’s Lovett, one hand on his shoulder, the other waving in front of his face and obscuring his view of the pale sky, something about it having been captivating his attention. Jon feels an abrupt and fiery hatred for Lovett in that moment, a bitter need to _hurt_ , to do whatever it takes to get him to _stop,_ to let Jon see the outside, see the sky, see the – see –

“Hey – oh – shit, are you okay?” Lovett asks, his face full of concern.

And just like that, the feelings are gone, evaporating as quickly as they had come, leaving behind only a surging sense of guilt and fear. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, meeting Lovett’s gaze. He’s pale, more worried than Jon thinks he’s ever seen him.

“Sorry,” he croaks. “What did you say?”

“You were somewhere else for a little bit there,” Lovett says, and his grip on Jon’s shoulder tightens a little, a distracting sensation only in that every touch against Jon’s skin is distracting right now; the trickle of sweat down the back of his neck, the air con drifting over his skin in an ongoing wave, Lovett’s fingerprints and his blood and the salty-sweet smell of him. _Like that popcorn he eats_ , Jon thinks, saliva beginning to pool in his mouth.

“I think uh, maybe – maybe you should take the day off. Me and Tommy talked,” he says, and there’s that shiver of anger again, this time with a bitter tang of jealousy, of betrayal. They _talked_ about him. They made a definitive decision without even asking him. “We’re all overworked, but I know you haven’t been sleeping, come on. I know you. Take the rest of the day, get some sleep, and you’ll be fine.”

He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself as much as he is Jon, and there’s something strangely sad about it. Tommy and Lovett have talked about him, have clearly noticed something is wrong, but they know as little as he does. Less, even, because he hasn’t told them about the things he’s been doing in secret, the strange thoughts he’s been having. Maybe Lovett is right though. Maybe all he needs is sleep.

Jon’s gaze drifts from Lovett’s eyes to his neck, to his arms, his chest, the pulsing heat of him – and then back, back to the window, where he searches the sky in vain for this thing he’s missing, this thing he knows will help him, will heal him, if only he knew what it was he was looking for.

He feels like he’s drowning in a thick, viscous fluid, an ever hardening amber. He should go home before he freezes entirely. “Okay,” he says eventually, his words slow and muffled. “Okay, Lovett.”

*

He gets an Uber home, although he doesn’t remember much of it. Later, he thinks he can remember shaky hands fiddling with the lock of his front door, he _thinks_ he can remember kicking off his shoes and collapsing fully clothed into his empty bed. He _thinks_ he remembers the strange itch beneath his skin, the anticipatory tightness in his tendons before he drifts off to sleep.

He thinks that he remembers these things, but when he slams into consciousness the following morning, it’s not a bed he feels beneath him. There are no clothes to protect him from the wet grass on his skin, the brisk air of a strangely chill LA morning. He is – achy, a little, like he’s spent a few hours at the gym, but feels otherwise _good_. Better than good, even, he feels more awake than he has in weeks. He feels like he’s stepping out of a dream, except the dream is the strange haze of nothingness that had taken hold of him for so long, and his reality is – oh.

Jon pushes himself upright, squinting open his eyes against the morning sun. He _is_ awake, that much he’s clear about, but not much else. He’s naked, which is problematic in itself, since he very much doesn’t remember getting undressed, but being that he is in a garden that isn’t his own, it also presents the problem of both getting out of the garden without first getting arrested for naked trespassing, and then the problem of then getting home without being arrested for public nudity. The question of _how_ exactly this happened would have to wait until later, when the immediate problem has been solved. He hopes Emily isn’t worried about him. He doesn’t even know if she _saw_ him last night, if he’d already left, or if he ever actually made it home.

Jon is searching despairingly for anything around the garden that would provide him with some sort of cover when he realizes suddenly that he knows whose garden this is. He knows _exactly_ where he is, exactly where he’s somehow ended up naked with no memory of getting there, but he’s not at all sure if that’s a good thing. No, he _knows_ it isn’t a good thing, a fact only further confirmed when Jon feels a wet nose pressing against his arm, Pundit of course, snuffling around him excitedly – and he hears Lovett clear his throat from behind him.

“So, uh, how worried should I be right now? Because I’ll tell you, I’m pretty fucking worried, Jon,” Lovett says, and when Jon turns to look at him he’s wide-eyed and pale faced. “I’d – I’d _love_ if you could reassure me that this was just a joke, or a newfound – I don’t know, drinking problem, but looking at you I’m thinking, uh, not.”

“No,” Jon says. He gives Pundit one last pet, letting her snuffle at his hand before running back over to Lovett, who immediately lifts her into his arms. It’s the most obvious tell for how upset he is, but Jon doesn’t blame him for seeking comfort where he can get it. Jon wished he had something that would help ease his worry right now, too, but staring at them both – staring at Pundit, Jon remembers something, a hazy memory from a month ago, now, of being snapped at by a dog he’d seen on the street. He’s not sure why the memory is so fuzzy, but now that he remembers, he can’t believe that he’d forgotten. Oh god.

“I think,” Jon says slowly, trying to recall what he can of the symptoms, of how he’s felt for the past month, the pieces slotting into place. “I think I have rabies.”

**Lovett**

Lovett’s first thought is that he wants to laugh. _Rabies._ What the fuck. But the longer he stares at Jon, disheveled and flushed and damningly naked, the more it makes sense. He’s been a sweaty anxious mess for a good while now, and Lovett had thought it was the combined stress of starting up Crooked and not getting enough sleep, but this makes more sense. Especially since Lovett can see a nasty bite on his arm – and Lovett doesn’t know much about rabies, but he does know math, and Jon’s behavior plus a dog bite sort of only has one real answer.

The absolute worst thing about the entire situation is that Lovett is _relieved_ when he sees Jon, coming off a night of guilty worrying after Emily text their groupchat to ask why Jon’s shoes are kicked off at the foot of their bed but that there’s no sign of him otherwise – having to explain to her that he and Tommy know that something is wrong with Jon but didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything but send him home to _sleep it off_ – that’s bad enough. But to have to tell her that they apparently told Jon to go home and sleep off rabies is the most ridiculous, awful thing that Lovett can think off. Lovett is thankful at least that he’s already sent a panicked **jon is naked in my garden pls come help** text to Tommy, if only because the responsibility for telling Emily, for making the decision on what the hell to do next, won’t be entirely down to him. He just hopes Tommy will get here quickly.

**Tommy**

Tommy has a theory. He would love to have been able to save everyone some pain and tell them about his theory earlier on – prior to Jon disappearing and then reappearing naked and apparently informing Lovett that he has rabies preferably, but proving the theory relied on what Jon did on the full moon, and if Tommy isn't right, well – this isn’t the sort of thing you just _tell_  people. Tommy is good with secrets, namely because he’s been keeping a family one since he was a child, and now that he’s like ninety percent sure his theory is correct, all he has to do is confirm it, and then he can finally assuage everyone’s fears – deal with the fallout, and hopefully fix everything before it gets out of hand.

More out of hand. Because Lovett’s increasingly frantic texts about rabies aside, Tommy knows, from the second he sees Jon huddled miserably under a blanket in Lovett’s back yard, that he was right – of course – and that he really needs to tell Jon what is going on. Honestly it’s a good thing he doesn’t have rabies, because Lovett’s approach to potentially fatal illnesses leaves much to be desired. He’s stood half behind Tommy, clutching Pundit to his chest while she squirms excitedly in Tommy’s direction. He gives her some scritches so she’ll settle, and then turns to Jon.

“You don’t have rabies, Jon,” Tommy says frankly, “you’re a werewolf.”

 

**Jon**

It takes some explaining. Tommy rubs the bridge of his nose the entire time, repeating answers back at them both until their questions shift from angry and confused and hysterical, to just sort of hysterical. If it were anyone else, Jon isn’t sure they would believe it, but as it is Tommy isn’t the type, and Jon is just so exhausted and scared that he’s ready to take whatever Tommy is telling him at face value. It’s still not _good_ news though. He’s not going to die of rabies and he’s not going insane, but he is a bloodthirsty monster now, he guesses, who tears up his bed sheets and craves meat and trespasses naked on his friend’s properties to – to what, _eat_ them? Why else would he have come here, if not for that?

“Oh god,” Jon says, ramping up to a full-blown panic attack, “what if I _hurt_ someone. What if I hurt Emily – or – you guys, or, I could have eaten _Pundit._ ”

“Oh my god,” Lovett says faintly, taking a half-step to his right so that he and Pundit are mostly hidden behind Tommy, who, for his part, just sighs.

“It’s not – you won’t hurt anyone, Jon, least of all Pundit. This isn’t a horror movie, you aren’t going to become some savage beast come the full moon,” Tommy says, folding his arms, “my dad’s side of the family are all wolves, and no one has ever hurt anything besides maybe a wild squirrel or rabbit. You’re physically a wolf, sure, but your personality is still mostly there, Jon. You wouldn’t hurt anyone as a human, would you?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then. Nothing to worry about.”

“Sort of a _little_ to worry about,” Lovett said, finally putting Pundit down and edging around Tommy into Jon’s field of vision. “Jon got bit by another wolf, so clearly they aren’t _all_ perfectly behaved little doggies, are they.”

“Yeah, someone needs to be told about that. But that isn’t a wolf thing, the – whoever they are as a human – they’ll be the one with the issues.”

“Issues that are _catching_.” 

Tommy shrugged. “I don’t know how exactly they’ll deal with it, I really only know what my family has told me. We’ll just have to hope until they get caught that most people have the common sense not to go around attempting to pet _wolves_.”

Jon bristles, even though he can’t really argue with that. The memories are still hazy, but he clearly hadn’t immediately run in the opposite direction when he saw a wolf wandering around in LA, so what had happened next is at least somewhat his fault. _God_. Emily is never going to let him live this down. Neither is Tommy, clearly.

“You said it isn’t just the moon?” Lovett asks after a beat, his shoulders tensing up a little when Pundit started snuffling around Jon’s feet. He leans down to pet her, happy that she doesn’t seem to be bothered by his change in species, at least. He hopes that Leo will be the same.

“No, he should be able to do it whenever. The first moon is just a sort of uh – catalyst, I guess,” Tommy says thoughtfully, “If you just – _think_ about being a wolf, Jon, imagine what it would feel like, as far as I know it’s as easy as that.”

Jon opens his mouth to say something like _wait a second_ _what if I don’t want to_ , or _how do I turn back though_ , but before he can he’s already thinking about it – the proverbial pink elephant – and, oops, what he wants no longer matters, because there’s a shimmering wave passing over his vision, an overwhelming rush of heat, and – _oh_.

He’s still _him_. He’s Jon, he knows, but he’s also this, too. He’s strong paws and claws and the dry grass underfoot. He’s the strange new feeling of muscles he’s never used before; ears twitching forward at the sound above him – Lovett gasping – the swish of a tail, a body both smaller and bigger than he is as a human, and the feeling is strange strange strange but _right_.

It’s hard to think, but he sees Tommy well enough, and he sees Lovett, and he sees – oh, yes, Pundit, trying to escape from Lovett’s grip, tail wagging excitedly, something in the movement saying _new friend!_ He sees them and he smells them and he smells the breakfast being cooked two houses over, which reminds him of how _hungry_ he is, and he goes over to Tommy and Lovett and says hello to them and to Pundit and gets his ears scratched and he thinks maybe even his belly now, this is great, but – also he wants food, _good_ food, which needs – thumbs, probably –

And then Jon is back in his own body. His other body. Naked, still, and having tipped off the chair he was sitting on at some point during the change, now on the grass again, looking up at the twin expressions of mirth on Tommy and Lovett’s faces. Lovett looks particularly happy, which is concerning.

“Literally every worry I had was gone,” Lovett says frankly, “in place of the sudden realization that I have gained about a thousand ways to blackmail you.”

“Uh, hold on,” Jon says, feeling like he has marbles in his mouth, wondering how long it’ll be before that change doesn’t make him feel like he’s relearning to be human all over again. If it will always be like that.

“I’m going to take _so_ many pictures of you,” Lovett continues, pulling out his phone, apparently no longer bothered that Pundit could be hurt by him, which is a _little_ embarrassing. All it took was a minute of seeing him as a wolf to deem him harmless, apparently.

“Wait, Lovett–” he protests, glaring at Tommy, who is laughing into his hands, shaking his head.

“Do you think they do dog outfits in wolf size?” Lovett carries on, still not looking up from his phone.

“ _Lovett,_ ” Jon starts, but figures, ultimately, that he has other ways to solve this problem now. So he concentrates very hard on the idea of being a wolf, of having paws, so that he can bowl into Lovett as hard as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> Rabies symptoms are sort of in line with the “symptoms” Jon was presenting; confusion, aggression, anxiety, excess saliva, high fever etc. etc, so that actually would have made sense, although if it was rabies, left to get to that point it would also probably have been fatal. So like, this is your rabies PSA I guess.


End file.
